


Tattoos and Scars

by NyxEtoile, OlivesAwl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Long-Term Relationship(s), Slice of Life, Tattoos, Vignette, sharon carter appreciation month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6245905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEtoile/pseuds/NyxEtoile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlivesAwl/pseuds/OlivesAwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"A SHIELD agent with a shield? Isn't it a little on the nose?"</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Sharon had Steve under her skin long before they met.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tattoos and Scars

When people asked Sharon if she had any tattoos she always said no. She was a spy, she did undercover work. It would have been foolish to have a tattoo.

When people actually _saw_ the tattoo and asked about it she liked to claim she was drunk when she got it. Lots of things seemed like good ideas when you were drunk. Regrettable tattoos were hardly the worst of it.

But the truth was she'd been stone cold sober. But she'd been young and surrounded by friends and that was probably a far more potent recipe for regrettable decisions.

It had been the night of their graduation from SHIELD Academy. She and three of her best friends had gone out for a big dinner and on the way to the bars they'd passed a tattoo parlor and someone - there was still, almost ten years later, a debate about who it had been - suggested getting tattoos to celebrate.

Meg and Tati decided on theirs almost immediately and were in chairs getting inked while Sharon and Gillian were still trying to decide. Gilly was dithering between a lotus or a butterfly, but Sharon hadn't seen anything that she really wanted to have permanently inked on her skin.

Then she turned a page in one of the sample books and came face to face with Captain America's shield. It was in the middle of a page of other old fashioned designs. She wasn't entirely sure it should be sitting next to a pin-up babe or an anchor, but it certainly caught the eye.

"Seriously?" Gilly asked, leaning over her shoulder.

Sharon lifted a shoulder, feeling oddly defensive. "I like it."

"A SHIELD agent with a shield? Isn't it a little on the nose?"

Well, now she had to get it, just to be contrary. "It has family meaning." She may have spent the last few years playing down her connections to Peggy and Captain America, but that didn't mean she wasn't proud of them.

The tattoo artist looked skeptical when she told him she wanted it on her ribcage. "That's gonna hurt like a bitch. You sure you don't want it on your ankle or something?”

"I need to be able to hide it," she insisted, pulling her shirt up.

He shrugged. "All right. Hope you don't want to wear a bra for the next couple weeks."

It did hurt like a bitch, but she breathed through it. Healing also sucked, with the itching and swelling and constant application of lotion. But in the end she had a little shield on the left side of her ribs, just a bit bigger than a silver dollar. It was her little secret, a private pick-me-up when she needed just a little more strength to keep going.

Of course, it never occurred to her Steve Rogers would actually _see_ it.

There was a massive procession of funerals after the Triskelion fell, and she kept running into Steve at them. She'd invited him to get a cup of coffee. It became dinner, and dinner became drinks. Drinks became the two of them back in her apartment, yanking each others clothes off. They were stone cold sober.

He looked just as good under the dark grey suit as she'd hoped he might. She kind of wanted to run her tongue over every one of those perfectly defined muscles. While he was distracted with her bra she decided to get started.

She was so busy admiring him it took her a moment to notice he'd gone still after taking her bra off. "Er. Sharon?"

Well, it was probably a matter of time before he came to his senses. She pressed a little kiss to his bicep and sat up. "What's wrong?"

He cleared his throat. "I did not know you had a tattoo."

Her skin went cold and she covered her face with her hands. "Oh. My God."

"It's very well done," he offered. 

"Just. . . just don't speak. Let the ground swallow me up. That would be best."

"No," he said. "You have to explain this. I demand you explain this." He sounded _very_ amused. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

"I need more alcohol." She tried to squirm away but he held her, lifting her a little so she couldn't go anywhere. Sighing, she said in a rush, "I got it when I graduated Academy. Peer pressure was involved."

"So I was dead at the time?"

" _Yes_." She didn't know if that made it better or worse, either. "It was just a symbol."

"You'd be surprised how often people flash me tattoos of my shield. It was a thing after the Battle of New York. Though it could be worse. Tony met someone who has his face tattooed on his bicep."

Okay, _that_ would definitely be worse. "That's just creepy."

"My favorite, actually, was the man who walked in New York's Pride Parade in a thong with one shield on each ass cheek. I think that was body paint, though."

"That's a man who got his ass smacked a lot."

"I expect that to be the point."

Something occurred to her. "Wait, so did you attend the New York Gay Pride Parade or was this brought to your attention by one of Stark's PR people?"

"I did," he said, tracing his finger around her tattoo. "Not everybody fits neatly in buckets," he added.

"Very few do, I should think." She shivered, then asked, with a hint of mischief, "Did you smack his ass?"

"No, because I have manners," he said primly. "So why the shield?" he asked.

She sighed heavily. "Well, I was joining SHIELD." He gave her a look that indicated he wasn't falling for it and she sighed again. Sex was looking kind of unlikely now. "I grew up on Aunt Peggy's stories of you and the SSR. I knew she founded SHIELD and did her little acronym dance as a way of honoring you. So I suppose it was my way of honoring that. That legacy that had lead me where I was. A reminder of what I should stand for. That I shouldn't let myself be corrupted or influenced by the world around me." She glanced at him. "My moral code might not be the same as yours. But it's mine and I stick to it no matter what winds are howling." She smiled. "And I liked that it was my little secret."

He covered it with one big, warm hand. "I like it."

Resting her forehead on his, the smile stretched into a grin. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He pulled her closer. "Now, where were we?"

She ran her hands down his back, kissing him. "Somewhere around here."

*

The CIA would be pissed at her, but when Maria Hill called Sharon and asked her to come steal a helicarrier so they could go rescue the Avengers from a monster of Tony Stark's making, Sharon didn't even hesitate.

It was more useful than sitting at work worrying about Steve. She had vacation days, anyway. 

The only tac gear she could find, though, was from a recent Op in Siberia, and it was white. So it was completely filthy by halfway through the fight. She'd ridden one of the lifeboats to the floating city, and quickly found herself fighting robots while keeping an eye out for her wayward sort-of boyfriend. 

She didn't expect him to look quite so horrified when he saw her.

"What?" she asked, yanking her baton out of the crumpled robot she'd just dispatched. "Is there something in my hair?"

He decapitated a bot with his shield and came running over. He was looking at her side, and when she looked down she saw a massive crimson stain spreading very obviously across the white fabric.

"Huh." She felt oddly detached. There was no pain, which was either a good or very bad sign. "When did that happen?"

He reached to put his hand over it. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to help." She gestured at the helicarrier. "With the rest of the cavalry."

"Bring any medics with you?"

"A whole roomful. I'll make my way back."

He threw his shield without taking his eyes off her. It took out two robots and pinged off a light pole before boomeranging back. "Be careful."

"You too." She wanted to kiss him, or at least touch him. But it wasn't exactly the best time. So she gave him a little nod and turned, making her way back through the wreckage of the city towards the lifeboats.

She was feeling dizzy by the time she got onto the boat, and someone had to help her to the med bay. The medic who took care of her cut away her uniform while someone else hooked her up to an IV. Things were getting very fuzzy. She really had lost a lot of blood, hadn't she?

"Nice tattoo," the medic said.

She stifled a groan. "Thanks. Did it survive?"

"By a hair. I'll be careful when I stitch it." He began cleaning her wound. "You a fan of Cap?"

"Something like that." She closed her eyes. "It's a private joke." She felt the sting of needles giving her local anesthetic, and then painkillers came through the IV. She drifted a bit, the stitching took a while. She didn't know how long, but she woke as he was finishing the bandaging.

"Fan is kind of an understatement, isn't it?" the medic asked.

It took her a moment to pick up the thread of conversation again. "Sorry?"

He pointed behind himself, to the glass doors separating the med bay from the hall. "Give it a minute." She frowned, and then she saw Steve pace by. He stopped at the doors, and their eyes met. "He's been 'casually' pacing out there for a good 15 minutes and intermittently glaring at the back of my head. I can feel it."

Sharon smiled. "In my defense, the tattoo predates. . . that." She wiggled her fingers in a wave to the window.

"You're all wrapped up. I'll go tell him he's not fooling anyone and to just come in."

"Thanks." He propped her up with another pillow before leaving. She watched him and Steve have a conversation through the window, in which Steve was clearly pretending he was just worried about an injured colleague and the medic was clearly not buying it. Then they both walked out of her field of view and a second later the door opened and Steve slunk in.

"Hi," he said, sitting next to her. "You okay?"

"I'm on a lot of pain killers, so I'm sitting pretty. How did it go out there?"

"We blew up the rock. Saved everybody we could." He sounded more exhausted than proud. He reached out to touch the top curve of the tattoo over the bandages. "How'd it hold up?"

"I haven't had a chance to look, but the guy who stitched me up promised to be careful."

"I was worried," he said quietly, and she knew he wasn't talking about the tattoo.

She reached out for his hand, feeling clumsy. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to help."

"We needed all the help we could get." Then he leaned over and kissed her, in his full uniform, visible to whomever might be walking by. It was over almost before she could react. But when he lifted his head she was grinning broadly. "Thank you," he added.

"Oh, that was gratitude, was it?" He blushed a little and she squeezed his hand. "You're welcome. I'll come watch your six any time."

*

The room was dim, and she lay on her side. The moonlight from the crack in the curtain fell across the tattoo of his shield over her ribs, and Steve reached out to trace it and the long scar running beneath it. Her souvenir from Sokovia. 

He'd made this mess and sucked her into it, but he was glad she was here. "I can't believe you just stole my shield."

"I prefer to think of it as liberating your shield," she said, watching him through half closed eyes. "More prison break and less smash and grab."

"I also can't believe they didn't revoke your access the moment I went off the grid. We haven't entirely been subtle the last year."

"They did. To the storage room the shield was in at least." She stretched and rolled onto her stomach. "I didn't say getting it out was _easy_."

"You ruined your life for me," he said. He hadn't really been surprised, by now they were pretty much in each others bones. But he'd still been so happy to see her, because he'd worried.

"I chose a side."

He traced his finger over the tattoo. There was a certain primitive part of him that liked it. A mark that said she was his. Especially in times like these. "I love you."

Her eyes widened a little and she leaned up to kiss him. "I love you back."

"When this is over, we may have to go on the lam together."

"I actually have training in that." She shifted, sitting up so she could face him. "It will be okay. We've been in tougher scrapes than this." Resting her head on his shoulder she added, "Can't think of any right _now_. . ."

"I'd rather run from the law with you than be safe without you."

She kissed his shoulder, mouth warm and soft on his skin. "Back atcha."

"We'll figure it out," he whispered. "I have no idea how, but we will."

*

Sharon studied herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. She had to use her hands to tuck her breast up out of the way, but she could still see the tattoo, such as it was. "I think it's officially an oval now."

Steve crossed the bedroom to come look at the tattoo. Her belly had gotten so big—only three weeks to go now—that even the skin that high had started to stretch. "It this one of those 'does my ass look good in this?' type of questions?"

"No, honey, I have eyes. I've noticed I'm put on a few pounds."

He slid his hand down over her skin, looking for the spot where the baby's endlessly moving feet were working on a tap dance routine. "It might be a little oval."

"We discovered the one thing that can defeat your shield." She took his hand and shifted it to where she could sense movement, just in time for him to feel a rather impressive jab. "Your son."

He grinned brilliantly. "I think that's a good thing."

She couldn't help but smile back. He was so excited about the baby. Had been ever since the pregnancy test had offered up a thin blue line. "It is. But I do hope it snaps back. I'm very fond of that little circle."

"If not, it will be another scar, and I like your scars." 

He'd been there when she got most of them, but saying that would probably make him sad. She leaned on him and he wrapped his arms around her, flattening his palms on her belly. "Hopefully this one will cooperate and I won't get a new one."

"If you do, I expect that one to be my favorite," he replied.

She turned her head to kiss him. "Happy?"

"Happier than I thought possible." It had been an interesting couple of years, what with Steve almost dying, and then almost going to jail. He was retired now, and the only remnant of his vibranium shield was the little replica etched into her skin.

"Has Bucky finished rebuilding all the nursery furniture?" 

"Yes. He replaced all the particleboard at the bottom of the dresser drawers."

"I feel more secure already."

"He'll be a good uncle. He's very excited."

"Gonna buy him teddy bears excited or going to hover on the neighbors roof to protect him excited?" These were important distinctions to make in life.

"I think the best we can probably hope for is 'both'."

"I can accept that. His fairy god-assassin.”

*

Forty year olds didn't wear bikinis. It was an argument that had seemed quite sound and logical. But Steve could be extremely convincing when he wanted to be. No one should lounge on the beach in a one-piece. 

He looked over at Sharon, stretched out on a towel while the kids played next to her. Jamie was systematically trying to bury the baby, so it seemed wise to keep an eye on things.

"Mommy, what's that thing on your tummy?"

Sarah's voice made Sharon jump a little and she glanced down as if expecting to see a crab or something chilling out on her stomach. But no, Sarah was pointing at something else entirely.

"That's my tattoo," Sharon said with a sigh.

"What's that?"

"It's when you have something drawn permanently on your skin. I got it a very long time ago."

"Why?"

Sharon shifted and held her arms out so Sarah would sit on her lap. "I had just graduated training and had started a new job. And I got it to commemorate that." Sarah poked the little colorful spot that was now no longer perfectly round. Three babies would do that. 

"Daddy had a shield that looked like that," Jamie piped up. 

"Yes, he did. And what's funny is I got this before Daddy and I ever met. But his shield represented a lot of things that meant a lot to me. So I got a tattoo of it."

Sarah looked over at Steve. "If it means a lot, why don't you have it anymore?"

Wasn't that the $64,000 question? The first time the government confiscated it, Sharon had stolen it back for him. The second time, he'd never seen it again. And had been surprised to find himself very happy for that. His soldiering days, important and amazing as they'd been, were long over. "I grew out of it," he said finally.

"Can't you get a new one? That fits?"

That made him smile. "There was only ever one made." He'd have to explain it all to them soon enough. How Daddy had saved the world. Multiple times.

"Daddy and I had a long talk," Sharon said, clearly aware Jamie was now listening intently. "Before any of you were born. And we decided that being a mommy and daddy were more important that anything else. And so he put down his shield so he could focus on you and your brothers."

Sarah nodded, and leaned on Sharon. "So we could play more?"

"Exactly." She kissed the top of her head. "And so he could read you bedtime stories and take you to ballet and see your brother play soccer."

"It was well worth it," he said. "You guys are way more fun that some shield." That was, perhaps, the truest thing he'd ever said.

"Now," Sharon said, bouncing Sarah in her lap. "Who wants to go in the water?"

*

Red tattoo ink, they said, was always the first to fade. Fifty years on her skin, and the red circle was now pink, and the black lines had faded blue. The white had actually been the first to go.

Steve still liked to trace it with his fingertips, even at moments like this when she was just trying to get him to help her into the shower. 

"Honey, it will still be there afterwards," she teased. "Or do I need to hire a nurse who will be less distracted."

"No one will take as a good care of you as I will," he insisted. He'd insisted the same when she'd had her _other_ knee replaced six years ago. He'd aged—thank the Lord, as she knew he'd been terrified of being immortal—but he was still strong as ever.

"That's very true." She kissed his cheek. "Or look as good doing it."

He settled her on the shower seat, and turned that water on. "Last I heard, they're thinking of putting the real shield in that Avengers exhibit at the Smithsonian."

"And here I'd thought someone had misplaced it." She soaped up her own hair, because she insisted on being independent in whatever way she could. "What about your old uniform?"

"Replica. No one can find any of them. Except the SHIELD one, and nobody wants to glorify that."

"Yes, I noticed a few facts were mysteriously absent in that write up they sent you."

He shrugged. "All history is revisionist."

"Such is life." He braced her so she could lean back to rinse her hair out. "Are we going to the opening?"

"They want me to. Time heals all wounds, I suppose."

"That and PR." She finished washing and he turned the water off, helping her out and insisting she sit again while he dried her off.

"I know the kids want to go, so I suppose I should."

She reached out and stroked his arm. "It'll be fun."

He carefully wrapped the brace back on her new knee. "Will you come with me and hold my hand?"

"Of course." He wrapped her up in a towel and took her back to the bedroom to get her dressed. "I'll even pose for pictures."

"Mr. and Mrs. Captain America."

"Hopefully I'll be on my feet by then. I'd hate to be downgraded to 'the infirm Mrs. Captain America.'"

"I'll carry you if I have to," he teased.

She laughed. "We could rig up at back pack carrier, like when the kids were young."

"As long as you're with me," he said. "That's all I need."

"Well, I've stuck with you this long." She took his hand and kissed it. "I think it's permanent. Just like that tattoo."


End file.
